


River (hold it back)

by Enby_Tiefling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguously Happy Ending, Dissociation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insomnia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleep Deprivation, Suicidal Thoughts, they're both depressed and trying their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 14:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19855426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enby_Tiefling/pseuds/Enby_Tiefling
Summary: Percival hasn't been sleeping.





	River (hold it back)

Vax finds him by the river.

It doesn't really make sense - Vex is the one who wanders these woods, Keyleth is the one who frets over him, Pike is the one who pulls him back from the shadows. But in the end, it's Vax.

Maybe they've always been inevitable.

Percival's standing on smooth rock, jutting out above the water. It runs fast but deceptively calm, the last rush of the spring melts washed out into the sea, waiting for the ice and rain to return. It's as warm as it ever gets nestled amidst the mountains. He hears cicadas louder than his heartbeat in his ears.

"A little close to the edge there, aren't you Freddie?" Vax's voice is careful, the way it's always careful now. The balance they've achieved is tense and hard-won and far too fragile.

He nods absently, waves a hand at his side. Maybe so. But this river hasn't killed him yet.

(He's eighteen, barely. There are hounds at his heels, baying, biting, as beaten as he is. They're all running.)

The spray of the water, barely tinged with salt just a mile from the bay, stings the unburst blisters and scrapes on his hands. He's been careless lately. Half-built nothings litter the workshop.

Maybe there are still footprints embedded in the stone, marking his last steps before the fall?

(He's eighteen, barely, and he doesn't fall.)

"Your sister's looking for you," Vax continues. His footsteps are silent, of course, but Percy isn't surprised when the rogue appears at his side. Their feet line up, toes pushed over the edge. Water darkens the leather of their boots

(He's eighteen, barely. He runs barefoot in the snow. It hardly matters that he leaves a trail, footprints and freezing blood.)

He blinks slowly, disconnected from his body. It's strange, but not unfamiliar. The ice around his joints creaks and cracks.

"I apologize for any inconvenience I have caused," he hears himself say. It's strange, knowing its his voice but not feeling his lips move. He barely feels the air in his lungs, but he knows he must still be breathing because people tend to fret when they notice his chest stilling for too long. The tension of holding it until he breaks makes his heart pound loud enough to hear. The deep breath before cracks the ice in his ribs. He's still breathing. Was he saying something?

There's a gentle tugging at his waist - Vax's hand is looped around his belt. He realizes he's without his coat, down to just his shirtsleeves. The cloth turns sheer where the water dots it.

Vax's hand is in his belt. He feels like he should say something - is it still too tense to crack a joke? Yes, of course it is, idiot, this is why - this is exactly why -

"Come back to the castle," Vax says. He's still so careful. Like he's not holding him in a death grip. Like he doesn't want to push, despite the way his hand brushes the small of Percival's back and somehow barely misses all the scars.

(He's eighteen, barely, and if he turns to look over his shoulder he'll see the lights of his burning city even through the trees and that, _that_ might be enough to halt him, even where his sister's blood couldn't.)

"Soon."

He feels his lips form the word this time, but now wonders if he put any sound behind it. The ice in his throat threatens to cut off all air.

The river moves at its slowest pace, this late in the summer. The last of the snow melt is gone, and the cold and rain won't return for weeks yet. Not until after the harvest. Mortals have carved a life out of these mountains. The river carves its path to the sea. Like men with weapons in arms reach, it hides jagged rocks beneath the tumultuous surface.

(He doesn't fall, and he hits the water.)

"...Percival, take a step back."

He stares at his feet, pushed over the overhang of stone above the water. They're his work boots, heavier and steel-toed.

His homeland is safe, under the watchful eye of a council devoted to its freedom after years of darkness. His sister lives, older than her years and achingly like their mother. His past is avenged, and his life -

His life is not his. It never has been, not really, always duty-bound and enamoured with these mountains. His life belongs to Whitestone, to Cassandra, to Vox Machina, to the memories of those fallen and the futures that may still come.

He belongs to the river. He didn't fall. He didn't fight its currents. The roar of it is familiar, more so than his heartbeat or sleep.

"It would be easy," he says, easing his weight just a bit further forward, testing the strength of what - who - holds him back. The words crack the frost forming on his tongue.

"Shit -"

His weight moves forward, forward, gravity shifting and pulling him down towards what was always supposed to be his end. In passing he thinks of winter, of snow and early darkness, and baying hounds. That night is long gone. But this is close enough.

But there is a hand in his belt, and another arm looping around his chest to pull him back. He watches the water approach and then recede, lurching and stumbling, not bothering to catch himself.

For a moment he's confused. His heart pounds like a jackrabbit's, and his skin expects snowdrifts when it meets dry debris.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Vax's face hovers above his, wide-eyed and twisted in an expression that Percival is too tired to decipher. There's a hand planted next to his head and another still trapped under his back. "You fucking - _moron_ , you _bastard_ , get up."

With leaden limbs he lets himself be pulled upright, then stumblingly rises to his feet. His eyes move back to the rock, to the river.

A hand grabs his chin - unshaven, sore from grinding his teeth - and jerks his head to the side. It's nearly enough to unbalance him, his vision blurring momentarily before focussing on Vax. Still with that expression, furrowed brows and thin lips and colour high in his cheeks.

"I..." The next words escape him, leaving his tongue heavy and useless in his mouth. His eyes are dry. He can't seem to blink fast enough to ease the ache. His vision blurs again, his stomach swooping and his hands beginning to shake. He only just realizes that they have been still.

Vax's hand moves from his chin to his cheek, his thumb brushing Percy's cheekbone, a callous catching the dry, papery skin under his eye.

"When's the last time you slept?" He asks, voice soft and careful. A different kind of careful, maybe? Best not to hope. He pats his cheek, with enough force to be halfway to a slap. "Eyes on me, Freddie, answer the question."

Vax's eyes are a curious shade of amber. Like his sister's, of course, but perhaps a little wider, maybe less hooded. Dark enough to hold oceanic fathoms but light enough to be kaleidoscopic, flecked with green and grey.

A heavy sigh, and an arm around his waist, and his arm slung over deceptively narrow shoulders.

"You better not pass out on me," he gripes as he starts tugging Percy along with him through the woods. "I am _not_ carrying you back to the castle."

He's done much more than walk on much less sleep - he wants to say so, to argue the point, to grab a sense of normality with both hands and choke it, but between one blink and the next they're halfway into town and the moment is long past.

They pass storefronts beginning to close for the evening; taverns beginning to fill as the workday ends; the Sun Tree standing tall and verdant green; the land of the Third House, half-built to Vex'ahlia's liking. She thinks he doesn't know about the forge she's put in the basement. The thought sends enough warmth through his numb body to start thawing the ice in his chest.

Vax stops just before they reach the entrance to the castle - he must have lost time again, thinking of Vex and her sharp eyes and soft, guarded heart.

"Look," Vax says, grabbing Percy's chin again to force eye contact. "You can either talk about what just happened with me, or I start bringing it up to people who won't let you off so easy."

Percy winces, clearing his throat.

"I... What is there to say?"

Vax sighs, "Just..." He bites his lip, hand moving from Percy's chin to rest against his cheek. "It's not worth it, you know? Trying to leave. Trying to _stop_. It always costs more than you find out you're willing to pay."

"I don't want to die," Percy says sharply, and he _doesn't_. His life is not his own but he's happy with it, with his sister and his family and the fragile promise of a world where he doesn't have to be a killer anymore. He pushes Vax's hand away, stepping back and walking inside.

The ice is thawing with the simmering anger Vax always seems to know how to trigger. The toxic, boiling bitterness, the spite that fuelled and poisoned him in equal measure for so long. The snapping beast below the surface - was it always there, or did Ripley carve it out, did Orthax feed it and let it grow hulking and monstrous?

But he's tired. Too tired to even stay angry at the thought - the implication that he would -

"I won't leave her." He turns on his heel to face Vax again. "Not any of you. I don't - I can't, how could I -"

He chokes on his words. _How could he?_ How could he - let his ghosts keep him awake, let them drive him into isolation against his better judgement (and he _does_ know better, mostly, by now), let the ice spread and freeze him from the inside out and make him numb enough that he would even consider -

He doesn't remember going into the woods. He's not sure how he remembers the exact path he took that night - but he does, he realizes, he has every footfall burned into his skull and he's only just remembered. But it's been days since he's slept and his heart couldn't beat in his frozen chest cavity and that night kept playing on loop, repeating, until he just had to wonder _what would have happened if - ?_

Vax sighs again, sounding almost as exhausted as Percival feels, and carefully wraps his arm around his shoulders.

"C'mon," he says gently. It should feel like pity, it should _burn_ , but. He's tired. Too tired to take offence. "Things'll look better after you've slept."

Percy's feet are clumsy on the stairs, his work boots too heavy to lift, but Vax gets him to his room without incident.

"...Thank you," he manages to whisper over his shoulder as he trudged to the bed, fully intent on falling into it fully-clothed regardless of how he knows he'll wake in a few hours overly warm and uncomfortable. "You know I wouldn't -"

"I know," Vax assures him, hovering by the door. "I'll tell Vex to check in later." He pauses, seeming to mull something over. "I won't tell. Just... Don't make this a regular thing, okay?"

Percy snorts as he falls forward onto the mattress. He makes a muffled sound of assent into his pillow, his eyes already shut and too heavy to open.

The rush of the river is still playing in his head but it's less of a crashing nightmare and more of a soothing white noise. There's a river in the woods outside Whitestone, like there are many rivers in many woods, and it runs towards the sea carrying snow melt and autumn rain and debris. It doesn't weigh on him now, the phantom feeling of water-logged clothes and ice gone from his skin.

He's asleep before the door closes.


End file.
